Chapter 42: Safe With Me

As Carmela woke up, she reached for her phone, only to find that it was off. She was confused, and she tried to remember when she had turned it off.

But her mind was blank. She turned it on and a flood of messages came in, most of them from Sarah.

"Where have you been?" Sarah's texts read. "I've been trying to reach you for days. Are you okay? Hannah and Noah don’t like your sudden disappearances every now and then."

Carmela's heart sank. Had she really not checked her messages for that long? What had she been doing?

Carmela sat up in bed, still in a daze.

She scrolled through her messages, reading them one by one. Sarah was worried, asking over and over if Carmela was all right. But there were other messages, too.

Some were from her boss Pedro, and some were from Andrew. She had missed so much.

And in all of the messages, there was a common theme: Where had she been? What had she been doing?

Carmela felt a knot in her stomach. She had no idea how to explain it to anyone.

As she k